The painting is from 1940 however, the artist Ferdinand Burgdorff seems to name it 'Laguna Seca, the Marilyn Monroe painting'. The top Marilyn is wearing in the photo is familiar and looks like the one in a 1953 Milton Greene session.

Landscape painting is between Monterey and Salinas. I'm assuming Burgdorff lived around Monterey and during the filming of Clash By Night Marilyn visited him and admired this painting - thus the namesake (obviously after 1940).

Great find, so very exciting! Instantly her hairstyle made me think of 'Clash by Night'. Maybe the top was a couple of years old when she used it for the Laurel Canyon Milton shoot. Certainly her look is not consistent with 1953.

The cast for "Clash by Night,'' including Marilyn Monroe and Barbara Stanwick, sat under this painting daily in a Monterey adobe during the shooting of the 1952 film. Above a photo of Monroe and J. Carrol Naish under the painting, which in 2008 exhibited at the National Steinbeck Center.

Ferdinand Burgdorff: 1883-1975Known for his romantic landscape paintings of the Monterey Peninsula and the desert Southwest.In 1907 he settled in Carmel, California and became an active member of the art colony. In 1919 he lived in Mill Valley, California but moved back to the Monterey Peninsula the next year and built a house in Pebble Beach designed by the legendary architect, Bernard Maybeck. He lived there for the rest of his life.